Why the Rockets will be in the NBA Finals next year

If you take a look at the West... all the elite teams are near the end of their prime. The Spurs showed us that they're tanked midway through the 1st round of the playoffs, the Mavs always choke no matter how much talent they have, the Suns are a run and gun team that won't be a problem for us, the Blazers can't ever seem to stay healthy, but if they do, they'll be a serious threat.

The Thunder haven't reached their full potential yet and they don't have the supporting cast to compete for an NBA championship just yet, the Jazz may end up losing Boozer and look like a totally different team next year, the Nuggets are a good and exciting team, but Melo doesn't have what it takes to put them on the next level. The Hornets are still trying to find themselves.

That leaves us with of course... the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers will always be a contender as long as Kobe is healthy and playing up to at least 80% of his potential. The thing is... he's getting old and he's been in the NBA finals 2 years in a row and he'll be in the Finals again this year. All of those minutes and extra games definetly puts a toll on a person's body and his supporting cast is also getting old and near the end of their prime (Fisher, Kobe, Odom, Gasol, Artest will all be in their 30's next season)

If Morey can go out and land Chris Bosh or another big time free agent and make a few tweaks here and there on the roster (sign another big or a replacement for players we give up to get Bosh), you better believe we're gonna be a threat to be in the Finals.

Our roster is made up of hungry players in their prime and mid to late 20's. When healthy, we have the most dominant big man in the NBA in Yao Ming and if you bring in Bosh, we'll have one of the most dominant defenses in the league. Hopefully we'll still have Ariza or Battier next year (both if Morey decides to rape the Raptors). So a line up of Yao, Bosh, Battier/Ariza will help the defense of Brooks and Martin greatly because no guard will be able to drive on us without getting bumped or blocked and it will definetly put fear in them to try again after they take a hard foul from our bigs. Last year we had Hayes defending the paint and our defense when focused was still able to play very hard. Putting two 7 footers in the paint will make a world of a difference for us. I guarantee you people will not notice the flaws of Brooks or Martin defensively (mind you Brooks is working extremely hard on his defensive game this offseason) as much this year as they did last year.

Anyways, every Rocket fan should feel good about the position we're in and if all the pieces fall in place, no one else in the NBA will be able to push the Lakers like we can. Heck, we showed what we're made of in 2008 when we pushed the then younger Lakers to 7 games without Yao, Deke and T-Mac.


What do yall think about our chances? I'm definetly pumped and ready for the off season to begin and see how all the pieces begin to lay out. Here's to Morey turning our roster into Champions in 2010-2011

 

I have faith that we'll stay healthy this year. First off... Yao is coming off major surgery and he's been staying away from physical activity for over a year (the previous 7 or so years, he's been playing full NBA seasons, playing for China during the summer, etc). He should be well rested and if Big Z's surgery has shown, big men CAN return to the NBA and be effective after major foot surgery, plus Big Z's surgery was a few years ago and advances in medicine should indicate that Yao's surgery was even better. All of Martin's injuries have been flukes and all the other players on our roster have been fairly healthy (most of our players had common NBA injuries - sprained ankles, sore knees, etc) and also the curse of Knee-Mac is finally gone.

Great coach + Best GM in the NBA + An owner giving the green light to our GM + A hungry team = Formula for a winner